Cole & Son | Rajapur Flock

Rajapur is one of Cole & Son's large paisleys, and the flocked version changes what it is. Flocking lays a short raised pile over the printed figure, so the boteh stands proud of its ground and the wall gains a texture the eye registers before the hand confirms it. The technique is old and difficult to do well. Done badly, flock looks fuzzy; done properly, as here, it gives a wall something of the depth of cut velvet.

The layout is simple for a pattern of this size, a single dominant figure well spaced with little secondary incident, and that restraint keeps the grandeur from tipping into weight. Light does much of the work: the pile absorbs it where the print does not, so the design advances and recedes as you move past it, and reads quite differently by lamplight than by day.

The repeat runs to 72.5 cm on a half-drop match, which offsets each drop and sends the paisley travelling diagonally rather than stacking it in columns. A narrower 0.52 m roll makes it manageable in smaller rooms and around chimney breasts. A dining room, a dressing room or a panelled hall suits it, somewhere the surface is met at close range and in changing light. It rewards restraint in everything else in the room.